Spirit Airlines superfan Hunter Peterson is hoping to crowdfund a purchase of the defunct budget airline

On Saturday, following the announcement of Spirit Airlines’ bankruptcy, content creator Hunter Peterson took to Tiktok with a “genius idea.” In a video with more than 700,000 likes, Peterson told his audience, “There’s over 250 million individuals over the age of 18 in the United States … if we took only 20 percent of them and paid basically the average fare of a Spirit Airlines flight … we could buy Spirit Airlines.” Peterson wants to turn the once-affordable, now-shuttered airline into a business venture that can be “owned by the people,” which he is calling Spirit 2.0. In one of his videos, to the sounds of Norman Greenbaum’s 1970 hit “Spirit in the Sky,” Peterson told his potential future business partners, “I’m kind of autistic, and I kind of like airplanes.” 

Two and a half hours after his initial post, Peterson received more than 50,000 views prompting him to create a website called letsbuyspirit.com, where those interested in buying into his plan could pledge support. With 124,755 founding patrons, Peterson’s initial website crashed, forcing him to create another domain now called letsbuyspiritair.com, which has well over $120 million in pledges. However, Peterson has been clear online that despite the amount of contributions promised, he is not accepting money. “This is non-binding pledges, to show interest to everyone else that we’re serious,” he said in a post on Sunday. (Peterson has said online that he refuses to speak to media or anyone in an official capacity until he consults his lawyers on legality — and he didn’t respond to a request for comment for this story.)

Peterson is no stranger to Spirit Airlines. Last August, he went viral for flying in one of their aircrafts for 24 hours. On Monday, Peterson — a former MrBeast employee and current voice actor — took his audience through a brief history of his obsession with airplanes. “From the age of seven, I said when I grow up I want to start and run an airline,” he said. Yet, despite that goal, he decided to major in film, rather than business, at the University of Southern California. “Yes, airlines don’t make money, they’re in debt, they constantly go bankrupt, and things like what happened with Spirit constantly happens, but I still wanted it because I loved having something that could help connect people everywhere.”

Peterson’s initiative has gained traction from previous Spirit fliers and even former employees. One former flight attendant commented on one of his posts using yellow and black heart emojis asking Peterson to “please hire all of the 17,000 back that lost their jobs. We soar together.”

Spirit Airlines first got its name in 1992, after rebranding itself as a charter airline, only flying to and from Detroit, Atlantic City, Las Vegas, and the Bahamas. Despite complaints about hidden fee disputes, bag and seat pricing, and attitude of its workers, Spirit allowed common folk to travel affordably. This is the same motivator to get Spirit 2.0 in the air. “Juan Trippe, the former CEO of Pan Am, signed the order with Boeing to create the 747 [airline] because it was the ability to shrink the world, to make air travel accessible to the masses,” Peterson said in Monday’s post. “That’s what I want to do, that’s why I want to be the CEO of Spirit Airlines. If you’re in, I’m in. Let’s do this.”